Assault and Detention
17 Sep 08
Arwa and I left her parents’ house at about 8.30. When we got to the checkpoint
at the top of the hill we noticed that it was the same soldier against whom I
filed a complaint. He was talking to a settler boy on a bicycle. Arwa went
first and he checked her bag and took her ID and detained her. He told her to
stand against the wall. I went next and he checked my passport and told me to
empty my entire bag onto the ground. Then he told me to put each piece back
one by one and show each to him. The settler boy was near by the whole time we were there and he was laughing as the soldier tried to humiliate me. The
soldier got me to open each camera and he stuck his fingers inside the video
camera. I told him to be careful and he got angry. I repacked the bag. He got
me to lift my shirt, then take off my bag and lift my shirt again, then take off
my kuffiya and shake it. Then he felt all along my kuffiya. I laughed at the
absurdity of it all and he got angry again. He said, don’t laugh. He told me
to go away down the hill but I refused and went to stand with Arwa. He came
over and took my passport and told me to sit on the other side of the road. I
went over and sat down. I pulled out my phone and called Wadea and asked him
to call the police because we had been detained again. The soldier yelled at
me to switch off the phone. Then he came over so I put the phone away. A few
minutes later I called Police Inspector Ilan Malke but got no reply. The
soldier kept yelling at me to shut down the phone but he did not come over.
Then I called Kiryat Arba police and asked them to send a patrol to the top of
the Hill on Tel Rumeida St. The soldier came over again so I had to put the
phone away before I got any real response from the police.
We waited for a time and eventually a police car came past but did not stop. It
was dark by then and I thought it was a blue police car. The soldier told us to
get up and both come to him. He told us to come up the hill with him to the
army base. I refused as the army has a habit of beating people once they are
out of sight near the army base. I have been badly beaten there myself and I
promised myself not to do that again. If they want to beat me they can do it
at the junction where there are witnesses.
As we looked up the hill we could see that the police car had stopped halfway
up. The soldier was being very insistent so we decided to go talk to the
police. When we got there we discovered that it was in fact a grey Border
Police car and they refused to open the door or talk to us. We made to go back
down the hill to the junction and the soldier grabbed me and tried to stop me.
I managed to get almost down to the Hateeb house. He had hold of my arm and
sleeve and he badly ripped the sleeve. Arwa was pulling me away from him and
he hurt her quite badly pulling against her. He deliberately trod on my foot
and on Arwa’s which hurt her badly. He ripped one of her bracelets off and
broke it. The other soldier was standing with the settler boy the whole time
and did not get involved. Arwa screamed very loudly as she had been taught to
in non-violence training. I started to shout Help. We wanted to be sure that
someone was witnessing what was happening.
Then more soldiers came down the hill and one of them grabbed me. Arwa
suggested we should go with him in order to keep the situation under control.
At the top of the hill, outside the military base (built on Uncle Mohammad’s
land) we were met by more soldiers and a junior officer. He ordered me to be
handcuffed and blindfolded. Then he ordered me to sit out of sight in the
corner against the wall, the same place I was beaten before. Soon after 2
police officers arrived and ordered my blindfold to be taken off. Arwa put my
glasses back on. There was a big argument between the police officer and the
army officer in Hebrew which seemed to be that the police were asking the
plastic tie to be removed and the soldiers were refusing. Then the police
asked me to move out into the road next to the police car. Arwa helped me to
move my back pack to ease the pressure on my wrists from the plastic tie. She
told the police that my hands were going blue. The police continued to argue
with the soldiers, apparently they were asking that I be released. I told the
police that I was willing to come with him but was not willing to stay with the
soldiers. He said the soldiers were in charge and neither he nor I could tell
them what to do. In the end the soldiers reluctantly agreed to remove the
plastic tie. The police officer told me he was leaving and that I needed to do
whatever the soldiers told me to do. I asked what it was I was supposed to have
done. He did not reply. I said I have done nothing. He said no one will
believe you, there are 10 soldiers to say otherwise. I said there were only 2
soldiers and my wife was there with me. He said we won’t believe either of
you. I told him he had an obligation to protect all the civilians here. He
said if I had a problem I could complain at the police station afterwards. I
said the soldiers are telling me I don’t have the right to phone the police.
He said yes you have to wait until afterwards to complain. He said you have to
wait where they tell you to for as long as they want, could be three hours.
He said you have caused trouble before. If you cause trouble again we will
arrest you. I said, but I did nothing ! He left.
The soldiers wanted Arwa to move away down the hill. They refused to give her
ID back. The police had told her she should stand where she was before at the
junction. She said, in public ? The police said, yes in public. She agreed
to go with them. The same soldier who had caused all the trouble took her down
the hill on his own. TIPH, Arwa’s brothers and some neighbours were at the
junction at the bottom of the hill. Half way down the hill, opposite the
settlement, the soldier told her to go off the road into the space next to the
settlement ambulance. She refused. She said, I am a Muslim woman. It will
cause a scandal for me to be out of sight with a strange man. He said that is
your problem. I am not asking you. I am ordering you. She refused. He went
and got her a chair to sit on. After a few minutes the black soldier who had
been at the checkpoint came down and stood near her. TIPH tried to come closer
but were told not to come closer and to go away. A Palestinian human rights
worker was filming from the Crossing.
After Arwa and the police left the junior officer got a chair and told me to sit
on it on the opposite side of the road, against the settlement. I was more
comfortable there as I was within sight of the Palestinian houses and the
people at the crossing. A soldier was assigned to guard me. He started to
talk to me and joke with me. Then he asked if Arwa was pregnant. I said no
and he asked, why not. I stopped answering him. Later he asked if I wanted to
drink. I said I would like some water please. He did nothing. He asked me
several times later if I wanted water and each time said, tomorrow you will get
water. Other soldiers came and asked if I wanted food. I said, lo todah,
almost the only Hebrew I know. Another soldier came and kept asking me
questions in Hebrew and getting angry because I could not reply. I kept
telling him I don’t speak Hebrew. Several soldiers came and went. Some of
them tried to taunt me but I kept calm. The soldier who started the trouble
came and went but only watched from a distance. At one point Captain Dagan
arrived in an armoured car. I said Shalom to him but he refused to speak to me
and walked away into the base. So much for his promise that I could talk to him
any time if there was further trouble !
The soldier who was guarding me asked me to sit up on the settlement wall
because he wanted to sit on my chair. From there I could see the people at the
bottom of the hill watching for me and also someone watching from the nearest
Palestinian house. At 11 pm the soldier took my passport and Arwa’s ID out of
his pocket and gave them to me. He also had another Palestinian man’s ID in
his pocket. He told me to go down the hill and go away. Arwa was sitting on a
chair half way down the hill with her back to me and we went down the hill
together and met with TIPH and the others.
Next day Arwa and I had to go to the hospital to get her foot x-rayed. No broken bones. She was in a lot of pain in her foot and having trouble walking. She is also badly bruised in the chest and has stained muscles in her back
The big worry for me now is that I do not feel safe in Tel Rumeida. The soldier
is threatening violence and the police are threatening to arrest me for nothing.
Clearly the police are not going to protect me and Captain Dagan has no
interest in curbing the abuses of his soldiers. Even though I have the right
to film soldiers when they misbehave they do not agree and nobody will protect
me from them if they attack me. The reason it is so difficult to get
Palestinians to make official police complaints is that they fear reprisals
from the soldiers. It seems the police have no interest in protecting people
who make complaints, even though it was Inspector Malke who asked me to make a
complaint and asked to see the video.
